This past week has been filled with a lot of highs and lows. It started off pretty well, my friend Derek and our new swim coach Liam both gave me swim tips at the end of last week. Very simple things, elbow position etc, and WOW did they make a difference. I won't hesitate to say that with one practice I was swimming 5-6 seconds/100m faster for the same effort.
Well thats not exactly the true, its greater perceived effort, but since the stroke is better, its targeting the bigger stronger muscles so the perceived effort is greater, but total energy output is the same.
Who knew a minor change in shoulder/elbow angle could be so drastic.
Just to demonstrate the change, last week I would be struggling to hold 1:30/100m if I were doing more than a couple. Sunday at practice the workout was 6X100 pull (I'm even slower at pull) and I managed to hold 1:25 for all of them. This was very exciting for me.
I'm going to have to make a comment to Derek and Liam about giving me swim tips the week before Storm the Wall since they are my major competition.
Come Tuesday afternoon things were going great, then the week took a turn for the worse. A friend and I decided it would be a good time to take a jump off the high dive. Lots of people do it, whats the big deal, it will be fun. Well I landed funny in the water and it honestly feels like I broke my tailbone. Awesome...
Honestly. Sometimes I'm an idiot.
Two days later and it still hurts to sit down and depending on the movement (kicking in swim) it still really hurts. Hopefully it will be better by next week when Storm the Wall starts up, otherwise I will really pissed with myself.
To make matters worse, things just went downhill on Wednesday. I woke up that morning feeling fine, got up and headed into the bathroom and got really dizzy, This happens sometimes when I get up to fast but this time was different, I felt really panicky for some reason. I quickly sat down and waited a few seconds for my head to clear. Now things get hazy, I think I went to stand up but I'm not too sure, the next thing I know, I'm laying on the floor and have knocked over everything in my bathroom. I'm boiling hot and still a little out of it, I stumble to my room and lay flat out on my bed and notice I'm sweating like mad. This last for 2-3 minutes then I start feeling normal again and just get cold. I notice my shoulder is stinging and check it out, only to notice I'd caught myself on the radiator and put a nice 4 inch cut on my shoulder. Fortunately its not very deep.
Its a pretty wimpy cut, the reason I'm showing it is more just to demonstrate the fact that I don't even remember getting it. Thats not cool.
The strangest thing of all this, after that 5-10 minutes passed, I felt perfectly normal again. I think this was caused because I sleep under heavy blankets and my heat is often left on. I must have overheated during the night and had similar symptoms to a mini heat stroke or something.
I decided despite the fact that I was feeling alright to take the day off work, more because I was stressed over fainting, not wanting it to happen again outside of my house.
Anyways, yesterday passed. I got some good reading and a bunch of naps in and today I'm feeling back on track. Did my swim workout tonight and had a pretty solid swim (despite doing it all pull).
Even though I don't feel sick anymore I still feel under the weather or something strange like that. Its almost as though I feel like I should be feeling sick, so I'm moping around waiting for it to hit.
Who knows, tomorrow is another day. Going to get a good sleep tonight and hope this all passes by the weekend. I've been having a lot of good weeks lately. A downer was bound to happen eventually.
6 comments:
Glad to hear I could help, even a little bit, with the swim technique!!!
Here's a story to make you feel less stupid about the tailbone thing.
When I was in grade 12 me and my friend Matt were skateboarding on my deck that is about 4 feet above the ground, which is covered in gravel. Back then I was a TERRIBLE skateboarder, so of course I was trying to stupidly push my limits. I tried to "grind" the edge of my deck but instead I accidentally kicked the board out, resulting in me falling 4 feet and landing DIRECTLY on my tailbone. I more then likely did break it, or fractured it, or possibly just bruised it, but the worst part was... IT WAS ON VIDEO.
Man does that suck!
Recover fast buddy!
Vince! I can't believe you fainted! I'm sure you'll be fine. Just take it easy, no more high dives or anything. I miss you.
Hey, thanks guys, yeah. Feeling better today, tailbone still hurts a bit, but other than that doing fine.
I'll definitely hesitate next time, probably just go off the 5 meter instead.
terrible luck about the tailbone. i was playing squash the other day and twinged my calf and have no idea how nor what exactly is wrong with it. i wanted to get your opinion about something though, i'm having second thoughts on my giant trinity TT/Tri bike purchase and was wondering if you've heard more pros than cons about training just on a road bike. the area of australia i'm in is amazing cycling but its really hilly, so thats where I feel like i'm being treated on the TT bike. i was told i could probably get fully value for it on a resale and am debating whether i should. what do you think?
if the comments on my blog aren't working still, cts@dal.ca would be a good place to reach me. thanks, cris
How are you doing???? I hope you are much better! That was scary to read about. Hope you didn't break anything!!!!
Yeah, things are going much better now. Tailbone still hurts a bit, but nothing compared to last week and although I'm still feeling tired, I no longer feel sick which is good.
Other than the scrape, there really isn't any evidence of my fall so I'm happy with that.
Thanks for asking.
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